Don’t expect to casually stroll through the new Science Storms exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry.

In fact, if you enter at just the right time, you’ll likely want to cover your ears.

"That's our lightning," Project Director Rachel Hellenga explains after a large bolt crackles overhead.
Suspended in air, a 20-foot Tesla Coil of electrical energy releases the high-voltage lightning strike twice an hour.

Keep walking, and you’ll find yourself in the midst of a 40-foot tornado. Dorothy couldn’t have dreamt this one up.

As a pool of fog swirls from the floor, visitors can either stand inside the vortex or manipulate it using nearby control panels.

And that’s only the beginning of the two-story, $34 million permanent exhibit at the museum. Spread across 26,000 square feet, the exhibit explores the science behind six of nature’s most powerful phenomenon – tornados, lightning, avalanches, fire, sunlight and tsunamis.

Through more than 50 hands-on experiments and smaller displays that explain the chemistry and physics behind the phenomenon, the exhibit is designed to appeal to the science buff, the novice or simply anyone who’s ever wondered about the weather.

“At its heart, I would say Science Storms is an exploration of essential science through the lens of large-scale natural phenomenon,” said Chris Wilson, senior project manager for the exhibit.

“And I personally think it’s a lot of fun,” he said.

In many ways, the exhibit is sort of like a laboratory, or at least one you’d expect a mad scientist to keep.

Among the “experiments” are a 20-foot avalanche disk you control, a 30-foot wave tank triggered by your finger, a sunlight-powered race track and an “adjustable fire” inside a fireproof glass enclosure.

“You are doing real science from the minute you walk in, and without any training,” Hellenga said. “We have taken it to a completely new level in terms of scale and interaction.”

Along with the interactive displays, large-scale videos scattered throughout the exhibit offer 5- to 7-minute presentations designed to tell the human story behind each phenomenon, Wilson said. For instance, one near the tornado vortex documents tornado chasers.

“They [the videos] actually turn into a place of refuge,” Wilson said. “They kind of drown out the chaos going on around you.”

They also educate, which is the exhibit’s main goal.

Programs for students and educators, including those at the Challenger Center in Woodstock, have been designed around Science Storms, said Bryan Wunar, director of Teaching and Learning Center for the Advancement of Science Education at the museum.

A museum team will present a small-scale version of the exhibit as part of the Challenger Center’s family night of science and math April 16. To register or for more information on the event, go to www.challengerillinois.org or call 815-338-7722.

“We’re trying to bring out a tabletop version,” Wunar said.

Aimed at those age 8 and older, the exhibit takes complex concepts and breaks them down in an attempt to engage visitors.

Displays feature everyone from Galileo, the physicist responsible for the birth of modern science, to Chicago Bulls point guard Derrick Rose. In a video, Rose uses basketball to explain “projectile motion.”

Teachers can replicate the concept behind many of the displays on a smaller scale, Wunar said.

“I think it gives us a whole platform to maximize what they can do in the classroom,” he said.

Scattered among the larger displays are more than 200 science artifacts that might not seem like much to the casual observer. But they have their own “wow” factor, especially to someone like Kathleen McCarthy, director of collections and head curator at the museum.

She pointed out the first magnet invented by Galileo in the early 1600s. And what looks like a simple bucket actually helped Robert Millikan earn the Nobel prize for his experiment to measure the charge of a single electron for the very first time.

“The reason we have the artifacts is really to embody the human ingenuity,” McCarthy said.

It’s this ingenuity that the exhibit hopes to inspire in others.

“There aren’t going to be resources like this anywhere in the world,” Wunar said. “We can really spark that next generation.”

Science Storms

When: 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday

Where: Museum of Science and Industry, 5700 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago

Tickets: Included in museum  admission ($15 for adults, $14 for seniors and $10 for children ages 3 to 11)
Information: www.msichicago.org